Using Data from MySQL

AppSheet can build apps from MySQL databases that are hosted in Oracle MySQL Cloud Service, Google Cloud SQL, or other cloud-hosting provider that supports MySQL.

To do so, add a MySQL data source using the Account > Data Sources tab.

In order for AppSheet to access MySQL data, the MySQL instance must be hosted in the cloud (in Oracle MySQL Cloud Service, Google Cloud SQL, Amazon RDS, or other cloud-hosting provider).

In order for AppSheet servers to access your data, both your network and MySQL must accept inbound connections to the database from AppSheet servers. Please refer to Managing IP Address and Firewall Information for further information.

Once a MySQL data source has been added to your account, you can add MySQL tables or views to any app. When you choose Add Table in your app, you can select the specific data source, and a table or view from that data source.

Once added to the app, AppSheet treats all data sources similarly. In fact, it's common and natural to combine data from a MySQL data source with data from other sources in the same app.

Using SSL

AppSheet can also connect to MySQL instances using Secure Socket Layer (SSL) connection. Under the hood, there are 3 main modes of connection in MySQL:

No SSL: in this mode, SSL connection is not required, although some cloud providers will still attempt to establish SSL if possible.

SSL required: in this mode, data to and from the MySQL instance must be encrypted using SSL protocol. However, only the server certificate (owned by the MySQL instance) is required to establish the connection. The client certificate (normally stored in the application client) is optional.

X.509: in this mode, both the server and the client certificates are required in order to establish SSL connection. Since it's currently not possible to store client certificates in AppSheet's server, this mode is not supported.

To enable SSL connection using the second mode, select Require SSL when setting up the MySQL data source. If your MySQL instance is configured to use X.509 mode, you'll need to change the connection mode to SSL in order for the connection to work. For instances hosted on Google Cloud, X.509 mode can be turned off by going to the SSL tab and clicking on Allow unsecured connections. This will tell Google to relax the client certificate requirement.

When using SSL connection, it's highly recommended that the MySQL instance uses a server certificate generated by a widely recognized Certificate Authority such as VeriSign or GeoTrust. This will ensure that the certificate meets all of the relevant encryption and formatting standards. Some cloud storage providers, such as Google Cloud and Amazon RDS, also generate server certificates for the MySQL instances that they host. Currently, server certificates generated by TinyCA are not supported.

Additionally, it's also a good practice to sign the server certificate using SHA-2 hashing algorithms. This is because SHA-1 algorithms are no longer considered fully secure, and many cloud providers, including Microsoft, Amazon, and Google, are increasingly moving to SHA-2 and SHA-3.

MySQL Version

When working with a MySQL data source, if you encounter an "Unknown column" error, this is most likely a version-related problem. For your MySQL instance to work with AppSheet, it's recommended that you use at least MySQL version 5.7.6. Also, because MySQL is open source, there are many other variations of MySQL, such as MariaDB or Percona. If you use a variation of MySQL, AppSheet cannot guarantee that your database will work. For instance, MariaDB is incompatible with AppSheet.

Using MySQL on Amazon RDS

If your MySQL instance is hosted on Amazon RDS, you may need to set the Publicly Accessible setting to Yes. To ensure the server accepts traffic from AppSheet, go to security groups settings in Amazon RDS, enter the EC2 Management Console, choose Edit inbound rules, and create rules to accept all traffic from AppSheet's IP addresses, which can be found in Managing IP Address and Firewall Information.

Required Columns

Each database column that specifies Not Null (i.e. "NN") in the MySQL schema will be Required in the AppSheet table.

By specifying Not Null for the MySQL column, you ensure the column has a value in both the MySQL database and the AppSheet app.

Each time you do a "Regenerate", AppSheet sets the "Required" property for the AppSheet field based on the current Not Null setting of the MySQL column.

Working with Identity Columns

It's common for a database table to use an IDENTITY column as a key. The values of the IDENTITY column are auto-incrementing numbers that get automatically inserted by the database. When you use such a table with AppSheet, there can be a problem. By default, SQL doesn't let an application define the IDENTITY column value. However, with AppSheet, new rows are created in the app when it's potentially offline and may only be synced later. So the app needs to be able to assign key/IDENTITY values.

The best solution is to avoid IDENTITY column keys altogether in your database schema. Instead, use a column that is an NVARCHAR(8) (or in general an NVARCHAR of length greater than or equal to 8). In AppSheet's column definition for this key, give it an initial value of UNIQUEID(). Now unique key values can be assigned by the app and inserted into the backend database.

If the database must use IDENTITY columns, it's preferable to create them with a large initial seed. For example, set AUTO_INCREMENT = 100000. In AppSheet's column definition for this key, give it an initial value of RANDBETWEEN(10000, 99999). Now any records created from your app will have five digit values that lie randomly in the range 10000 to 99999, while records created directly against the database will have higher values.

If the database schema cannot be changed and if there is already an IDENTITY column being used with the default initial seed (of 1), we recommend that you follow the same approach as described earlier. However, you can first manually increment the identity seed as follows:

ALTER TABLEtablenameAUTO_INCREMENT = 100000;

This should "re-seed" the identity column to the desired range. Your AppSheet app will insert values in the range specified by the RANDBETWEEN() function in the initial value of your AppSheet column definition.

Saving Files Created in the App

Database servers differ from the rest of our cloud-storage providers in that they do not have a file system. This leads to a change in AppSheet behavior when saving files (like images and documents). If the app has to capture photographs, they are normally stored in a folder next to the source of data in cloud storage. In the case of a MySQL table though, image and document files are stored in the main cloud file system associated with the app creator's primary AppSheet account (typically Google Drive/Dropbox/Office 365/Box). The files will be saved in a subfolder of your account's default folder path (usually /appsheet/data). You can view and change the default folder path in your account page under the Settings tab.

Working with Special Characters

A MySQL character set defines the characters that can be read and processed by a particular MySQL database or table. The default character set of a MySQL database should work with most Latin characters. However, many languages, such as Spanish or Chinese, have special characters which aren't included in the default character set. In order to work with these special characters, you'll need to configure your MySQL database or table to use the appropriate character set.

For example, to configure an entire database to work with special characters in Spanish, such as ñ, you can use this command: